After Spring Break

 Hi Grade 1/2 parents/guardians

We are planning an Easter Egg Hunt on Tuesday, April 6, the first day we return from spring break. Students will be using a map to find laminated “eggs” that will be located at different locations at the green space, north of the school, and on the school grounds. The activity makes connections to the social studies curriculum: students will use familiar landmarks and places in the community to understand a map and locate the eggs; use critical thinking to solve problems; use social skills including cooperation, conflict resolution and consensus building; and they will demonstrate skills of oral, written and visual literacy. We are excited to make connections to the land and our community in this fun event.

Please make sure your child has appropriate outdoor clothing as the activity will take about 1 hour to complete. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Thanks!

 

March 25, 2021

 Hello Families, 

I hope everyone is looking forward to spring break next week! 

We have continued to work with Ms. Jenn from Arts Commons on our Open Minds experience, paperwork for this will be coming home after the break as we move into thinking about our artist experience that will be taking place in April/May! The kids continue to love our virtual time with Ms. Jenn each week!

We learned about the bossy R this week and how he changes the sounds of the vowels i, e, and u to say /rrrrr/ like a pirate! We have been looking for bossy R words and realized it is even in some of our names. We have also been learning about homonyms and homophones and creating lists and images of this work to represent the different meanings of words. 

We also continue to learn about Canada by watching a fun mini series called Canadian Crew and practicing jot notes to document and summarize the important information. So far we have learned about mountains, rivers, and Canada Day! Did you know Canada is turning 154 years old this year?

We have started to divide our groups in mathematics learning, with grade ones working on decomposition of number to build addition and subtraction fluency. Grade 2's are working on addition with 2 and 3 digit numbers. 

We also completed a STEAM challenge (as a request by the students) for creating the longest paper chain using only one piece of paper under a 20 minute time constraint. We will start talking about standard and non standard units of measurement after the break using our chains!

Happy Easter!

Ms. Brown

Yearbooks!

 LBS YEARBOOK: Order your 2020 - 2021 yearbook today and take advantage of the early bird price. This year due to covid, our teachers are taking the photographs that will be featured in the yearbook and hub students will also be featured. 

Visit ybpay.lifetouch.ca to place your order. Your yearbook ID code for this year is: 11352721 

Leprechaun Fiasco in Room 11

 Hello Families, 

We arrived at school today to complete chaos! Mysterious little leprechauns sprinkled our classroom in sparkles and green things, even putting things on the Smart Board!!! We were so shocked to see this, and decided it was time to officially get our traps ready so these little trouble makers couldn't mess up our classroom again. 

We thought about the roles of engineers and architects in the real world, and created plans for how we could use loose parts to create leprechaun traps and set them out in the classroom. I was impressed at how the students collaborated and continuously solved problems, demonstrating perseverance and flexible thinking. Here are some pictures of this work:

We also had a classroom visitor from Ireland! Ms. Brady, our school lunch supervisor and librarian, came to read us a story and spread St. Patrick's Day cheer!

Thanks again to everyone who attended and supported learning conferences. If you have additional questions about your child's learning please contact me via email. 

Take care and Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Ms. Brown

March 3, 2021

 Hello Families, 

Thanks so much to all who have booked conferences for next week! Just another reminder that these conferences are "student-led" meaning your child will be taught the skills to lead the conference and share their work with you, thus, your child must also be available to attend your conference time. I will simply be there as a support and to guide conversation when needed!

We have been working hard getting ready for conferences, including starting work on Canada's diverse communities through the lens of the provinces Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Nunavut. We are working on math based artwork around these various communities that we can share with you during conferences. This is even and odd artwork that will be similar (but more advanced) than the work that was completed during home learning in January. In teaching, we call similar tasks with increased expectations parallel tasks, and they allow for greater student success when expectations are already familiar! :)

Students' became super curious about "real-life" monsters after a student presentation on Scotland and the Loch Ness Monster. We have started learning about fiction and non-fiction text and creating our own detailed descriptions of monsters that are fiction, yet convincing enough to be considered non-fiction. It's a great opportunity to practice engaging writing and adding adjectives to work. This work was inspired by a book we read, and we have since been exploring various types of fiction and non-fiction text. We are hoping to be able to trick you into being scared of these monsters by the time conferences roll around! Here are some pictures of some of out steps thus far:

We have also started a mindfulness residency at LBS and our class has begun our virtual participation in Arts Commons, Open Minds! The work with Arts Commons will take us to the end of the year, supported by experts who will build our capacity in visual and performing arts and journalling activities! We had our first session last Thursday for an hour and it was SO fun!

The warm weather has everyone happy to be out and enjoying the sunshine! I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy!

Take care, 

Ms. Brown